


Binary Star

by heyginger



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: High School, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 22:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13374009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyginger/pseuds/heyginger
Summary: Patrick finds out that he and Pete definitely aren’t dating on a Sunday evening in 2001.On a Friday night in 2016, Pete finds out that, when they first met, Patrick thought they might have been dating.





	Binary Star

Patrick finds out that he and Pete definitely aren’t dating on a Sunday evening in 2001.  It’s late fall, so it’s dark right after he gets home from school, and there’s a pumpkin rotting on Mr. Dunkirk’s porch across the street.  Patrick can see the candle lighting up the sad, shriveling smile when he looks out his bedroom window.

Pete calls while Patrick’s working on his chemistry homework, and it seems he just wants to update Patrick on the events of his weekend: he got a lead on this possible gig next weekend, and he had pad see ew for lunch, and, oh, he met this new girl Friday night and at first he thought it would just be sex but it turns out she’s amazing and he’s already called her again.  Patrick is speechless for a moment, has this immediate sense of betrayal, which is weird because it’s not like he has any reason to feel betrayed.  Except, he realizes, as Pete waits for his reaction, maybe he had hoped.

“Uhm.”  He clears his throat.  “But what about--” he says, and miraculously bites down on the  _ me _ .  His face flames.

Pete pauses.  “Yeah?”

“Uh.  Nothing. I--never mind.”  It isn’t hard to sound confused.

It hadn’t been a fully formed thought, is the thing, but it had been a thought.  Patrick had only just started to let himself think about it:  _ maybe, Pete wants...maybe, we could _ .  It had seemed, tenuously, possible.  The previous Tuesday, Pete called him at 2am, his voice slow and quiet.  “My bed is too familiar. It’s like it’s adjusted to my shape and now it’s trying to swallow me,” he’d said.  “My pillow doesn’t feel right against my face.”

“Flip it over.” Patrick mumbled, burrowing his feet down to the cool spot at the bottom of his comforter.

“I bet your pillow is perfect, Trick.”  Pete paused and Patrick could hear the sheets rustle, imagine them wrapped around Pete’s shoulders.  “I wish I could put my face on it next to yours.”

It was heady, all of it, from the stupid nickname that only Pete used to the sound of his exhalations magnified down the phone line in Patrick’s ear, in Patrick’s bed, in the middle of the night.  All of Pete’s attention had been heady since they met, intense, and now, with the announcement that Pete has a new girl, Patrick is aware that the attention had kindled a little flame, a little glowing assumption inside his chest. 

“You’re my true north,” Pete had said before falling asleep Tuesday night.  “So if I turn my face that way, it’s almost like we are sharing a pillow.”

When Pete finishes talking about this girl, Shannon, and they hang up, Patrick just sits on his bed for a while.  He’s glad Pete told him on the phone, glad he was alone, glad he has time to let the pink fade from his cheeks before he has to see anyone.  He doesn’t cry or hit anything.  Mostly he just blinks and feels dumb in a vast and complicated way.  There’s a weird sort of relief mixed in there, too, like maybe he had been worried that getting Pete, having him, would be too much for him.  And there’s some mortification, of course, that any little part of him had assumed that Pete would...well, just that Pete would. But, mostly, he just feels cold where that little flame has gone out.

The cold feeling lingers for a while, and Patrick gets used to swallowing against it when it flares up.  Then, a month later, when Patrick is watching Pete and Chris stick french fries up their noses at McDonalds, he realizes that Pete is kind of a dumb shit.  After that, he doesn’t think so much about it anymore.

Years and years later, Patrick will be at a party in one of the places Joe will live, the one with the bright yellow sofa, because later he will remember bracing himself with one hand on the sunshine canvas and a holding gin and soda in the other hand.  He will discover that it’s the kind of story that seems hilarious to share with everyone when you’re drunk and laughing and also when you feel much older now than you were then.  Andy will be telling a story about the time, way back in high school, when he accidentally ended up with two prom dates and no intention of going to prom, and Patrick will say, “No, no, no—no, no; wait, hey, did I ever tell you about the time I thought I was dating Pete?”

His friends will be mocking bitches because that’s who they are, and Patrick will find himself leaning forward, ticking off the misinterpreted evidence in Brendon’s face. 

“One,” he’ll say, “He called me every night.”  He’ll strike his forefinger.  “Two.  He called me his soulmate.”  Middle finger.  “Three.  He lent me his scarf when I was cold.  On the walk.  Home.  That he was…walking me.  There.”  Ring finger.  “Fourth.  We spent an awful lot of time talking while we were both lying in bed for, you know, like...me, as a high school dude.  Oh, and he offered to take me to prom, which was mostly I think because he wanted to shock the establishment or maybe go in drag, I don’t really remember.  Maybe both.  But,” and that’s five fingers of rationale, so Patrick will hold his hand out in triumph.  “I mean, it became obvious pretty soon that we were, you know, definitely not dating.  And looking back now,” Patrick will roll his eyes at his younger self, “...but for, like, a week in 2001, in my heart,” and this is the big punchline, so Patrick will pause and then finish somberly, “Pete was my first boyfriend.”

Joe will be giggling his head off in the corner, and Brendon will have to try three times to stop laughing long enough to ask, “Did you--how did this end?”

“Well,” Patrick will say, scratching his scalp, “Pete called me up one night to tell me about going down on Shannon DeFlorio, and I pretty much figured it out.”

“Oh, dude--brutal!” Brendon will pat him on the back consolingly, and then Joe will ask about whatever happened to Shannon DeFlorio, which no one will know, and the conversation will move on.

In as much as Patrick will think about it, he’ll think that he’s safe in telling that story.  It was a long time ago, and it’s really only funny at his own expense.  Even drunk, he will have the presence of mind to bite back on some of the details, like the scratchy vulnerability in Pete’s voice when he said he wished he could share Patrick’s pillow, or the way he’d press his mouth to Patrick’s shoulder sometimes when they hugged.  He’ll be careful to make sure that the story doesn’t veer away from laughing at young, naive Patrick and too close to laughing at Pete, or worse, exposing the sweet intimacy that he’d felt in those gestures.  

He’ll pretty much think he’s safe right up until he sees Pete’s face.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm hey-ginger on tumblr, if you want to say hi.


End file.
